A key feature of a work-based learning programme is the requirement to learn from and for your work context. Work-based projects are purposeful work activities focusing on the real demands of your job. Engaging in a substantial work-based project provides opportunities for you to investigate, plan, develop, implement, review and learn from experience.

The final stage of a master's qualification requires you to engage in a substantial work-based, investigative project, which typically takes around six to nine months to complete.

This 60-credit project will be of sufficient complexity and timescale to allow you to:

• Plan and conduct a practitioner enquiry that contributes to knowledge creation and interpretation in your organisational context
• Develop mastery of key methods and techniques for undertaking practitioner enquiry, including action planning and problem-solving
• Identify, select, justify, plan and deliver a complex and multifaceted task related to the implementation of a work-based project
• Make a relevant and useful organisational impact; deploying resources effectively

Before embarking on a 60-credit project, you will complete a project proposal and ethics statement. Your mentor will provide you with formative feedback on your proposal before you submit your final version to the University Project Approval Committee.

This module is a key part of how we support you in customising your postgraduate programme.

As part of this, you will:

• Develop your learning objectives to meet your personal development needs, the needs of your workplace, and the University's requirements.
• Update your personal development plan.
• Engage with your key stakeholders to determine organisational needs and the requirements for a substantive work-based project.
• Negotiate your future postgraduate programme, selecting modules to best meet your needs.
• Outline a proposal for a work-based project to fulfil personal, organisational and University requirements.

You will also negotiate timescales, target award and award title to construct an achievable programme that meets your career aspirations and the requirements for success at postgraduate level.

Effective collaboration and successful teamwork are key features of successful organisations. This course will develop your critical understanding of the features of "high-performing teams" and your skills working as a team leader or member.

You will explore key concepts, models and theories of team roles and dynamics and relate these to your own experience. You will evaluate frameworks for assessing and developing team performance and consider their usefulness and applicability to your own practice.

We will explore with you the answers to some key questions:

• What is the impact of leadership on the performance and development of teams?
• What leadership skills and strategies are effective?
• What is 'collective leadership'?
• What are the specific challenges of working with inter-agency and inter-professional teams?

You will evaluate ideas, relate them to your situation and develop practical strategies you can adopt at work.

This module will cover:

• Managing people for effective performance through the life cycle of employment
• Managing day-to-day performance
• Dealing with performance issues
• Understanding an individual’s motivation, personality, and behaviours
• Developing appropriate, effective people management responses
• Leading and developing your staff

The module will help you develop an understanding of best practices for managing staff performance and a range of skills to enhance your ability to lead and manage staff routinely. You will increase your understanding of others' behaviours and motivations, explore a range of tactics to engage staff and improve your own ability to manage staff performance.

This module will cover topics including:

• Leadership in times of change
• Transitional to transformational leadership
• Appreciative leadership
• Stakeholder analysis
• Supporting staff in embracing change
• Capacity building to cope with uncertainty
• Achieving sustainable change
• Dealing with resistance to change
• Emotional Intelligence - self and social awareness
• Influencing skills

You will develop your understanding of various approaches to leading others through times of change. You will develop your ability to understand how to engage and influence others and how to take into account different individual’s responses to change. This learning will enhance your capacity to lead and manage people through change.

The topics covered in this module include:

• What is leadership? What is management?
• Leadership and management: current debates and issues in relation to the challenges of your own role
• Social and ethical challenges for management and leadership in changing organisational contexts; managing with integrity
• Organisation culture, values, power – impact on expectations and behaviours of leadership and management
• Understanding your own leadership style, behaviours, habits
• Evaluating your own strengths and development needs in the context of management and leadership
• Developing authentic leadership effectiveness – aligning your approach to fit with current and future organisational needs

This module will help you to understand different perceptions of effective leadership and management and examine the effectiveness of leadership and management in the context of your own organisation. You will be able to devise a strategy for your own personal leadership development to help you address the current challenges of your role.